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Dumping IEMs

#21
I think for me, more often than not the IEM's are a good thing. But, the band I'm in now has a nice powered JBL system with a wedge for each of us. We're a 4 piece (acoustic, electric, bass and drum) and each of the guys has learned to play at the perfect volume (for me). Our drummer plays just hard enough and the guitar player gets just loud enough to cover his side of the stage and just a bit of mine. I actually have to turn him up in the wedge quite a bit to hear what he's got going on. We have a very clean wedge mix too. I get some of the acoustic and vox in mine and I'm good to go. I'm new to this band, but I don't have to push my rig near as much to get a good volume that also mixes with the band anything like any of my previous groups. I think the IE's can cover any situation but if you get a disciplined group of musicians together who think sonically and don't have to stroke their own egos, you can do fine with a non IEM rig. And we mix our own sound most of the time.
 
#22
I agree - mostly. We use IEM's at church and I like that I don't have cymbals splitting my head. Even with a "sensitive" drummer sometimes they just get loud.

I do a jazz trio and that drummer while tasteful is still loud.

I love my IEM's and wish I could have had them year ago - so do my ears.
 
#23
I use an Ultimate Ears dual driver IEM with an Aviom mix at church. With a custom mold earpiece, it provides a good contolled mix but think there is something to be said for IEM's with vent slots to let some ambient sound in so you're not in such a bubble. I saw a model like this when ordering mine but it was very expensive ($800). Wondering if there is anything like this available for a more reasonable price?
 
#24
Sorry, but I didn't get into music to make it feel like I'm wearing an MP3 player. Never used IEM's, never plan to. Will do it if the money's right and I don't have to pay for them, but it's nothing I'm going to encourage.
 
#25
5StringPocket said:
I use an Ultimate Ears dual driver IEM with an Aviom mix at church. With a custom mold earpiece, it provides a good contolled mix but think there is something to be said for IEM's with vent slots to let some ambient sound in so you're not in such a bubble. I saw a model like this when ordering mine but it was very expensive ($800). Wondering if there is anything like this available for a more reasonable price?
Click to expand...

We just hung 2 SM57s from the ceiling to feed the congregation into our IEMs. In my opinion, the biggest improvement of our recent upgrade. Might upgrade them to condensers soon, definitely cheaper than everyone getting vented ear buds.
 
#29
jjk2007 said:
I think for me, more often than not the IEM's are a good thing. But, the band I'm in now has a nice powered JBL system with a wedge for each of us. We're a 4 piece (acoustic, electric, bass and drum) and each of the guys has learned to play at the perfect volume (for me). Our drummer plays just hard enough and the guitar player gets just loud enough to cover his side of the stage and just a bit of mine. I actually have to turn him up in the wedge quite a bit to hear what he's got going on. We have a very clean wedge mix too. I get some of the acoustic and vox in mine and I'm good to go. I'm new to this band, but I don't have to push my rig near as much to get a good volume that also mixes with the band anything like any of my previous groups. I think the IE's can cover any situation but if you get a disciplined group of musicians together who think sonically and don't have to stroke their own egos, you can do fine with a non IEM rig. And we mix our own sound most of the time.
Click to expand...

I've been steering the bands I run sound for in this direction for years, and it works very well; gets you more respect from professional sound providers, too! :D

The thing that keeps pulling me toward IEMs is that several of the best paying casino gigs require them; it makes sense to become "expert" at playing with IEMs before accepting such a gig. The other advantage I want to extract from this set-up is the ability to send the splitter outs to a multi-channel recording interface, or send any IEM mix to a digital recorder.

Were I to move to IEM, I would want sound to have consistent sound with an established mix for every gig. To me, this means buying and managing the IEM transceivers, limiting, EQ, monitor mixer, while providing an easy interface with FOH. On gigs that provide a monitor operator, he'd be using my gear.

Would y'all go digital for a monitor mixer and FOH send, or would a used A&H MixWiz3 12M be OK?
 

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